Weeknote 8: what it means to be a designer in the NHS

I’m on holiday so I shouldn’t really be writing a weeknote but I’m getting lots of designers reaching out to me on Linkedin who have never worked in the NHS, wanting to work there. This is my personal view and not my employer’s.

Being a designer in the public sector might not mean a public sector job.
It’s important to understand that an opportunity might not come directly to you as a freelance person.  Public sector bodies like the NHS and others both hire people directly and procure services from companies who then hire contractors. You can choose to complain about that or you can work with it. I work as a contractor.

Finding out who has been contracted to work with the NHS is a bit more fiddly but you can look through Find a tender service and select the ‘Award’ criteria in the search box to find out who has been awarded a contract to procure services. It’s them you need to meet. Those private sector organisations might not offer permanent positions but they might offer you a fixed term or rolling contract. If you’re on a graduate visa and looking to get sponsored, you should check if they’re up for doing that eventually.

Learn the tools of this trade. 
My colleague Frankie and Ed and others maintain the NHS Prototype Kit. You should get comfortable using it because no matter what kind of design profession you are, you’re going to have to deal with it quite often. If you’ve never used a design system, well, get learning.

Learn to love clinical assurance.
Working in the NHS means working with clinical assurance and information governance processes all the time. Every time you propose a new feature which might have a repercussion on someone’s data or someone’s experience of the NHS, it needs to be approved by a clinical assurance colleague. You could choose to see this as ‘getting in the way of progress’ or simply what the environment is made of. It’s not about tech for tech’s sake, it’s about a careful consideration of all possible spillover effects at every possible opportunity. It’s not for everyone. If you want a dynamic, fast paced development environment, I would recommend the private sector. If you want to make an impact, well that takes time and it takes working with colleagues who rarely work with anyone that doesn’t have a medical background. You should be learning about their world, and hopefully they might find a little bit of time to learn about yours.

Learn to work with tech colleagues. 
One of my colleagues has been working as a designer on a project which has taken years to get to the point where now, some design work might be possible. This told me two things: one that the project was very tech focused, and two that the right conditions do not exist. You have to create them. You have to be willing to make yourself just a little useful to a tech colleague to get to know something that would unlock a lot of UX value. You have to be willing to show some visual experiments to paint the art of the possible. And you have to be willing to deal with the shrugs you might get back or the clinical assurance questions.

I hope this is helpful. It’s great work, just be ready for it.